Women Run Mongolian Elections, But They Don’t Run In Them

Posted on July 5, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

When you go to vote in Mongolia, look around in the polling station. Like so many (government) offices, the polling stations are run by women. Yes, every once in a while, there will be a man as a member of the local election commission, but rarely more than one man. And, making the gender dynamics in running the election even more striking, that single man in the polling station is probably the head of the local election commission.

My observation here is based on the roughly 100 polling stations that I have visited as an international election observer in five of the past six national elections (all since 2008, but the 2016 parliamentary election).

The same observation is true for campaign offices. Whether these are in an urban setting or a remote “propaganda ger”, or whether they are of the typical age composition (MPRP = 60 years old and above, DP with many younger campaign workers, MPP with a mix), campaign offices are generally staffed by women.

And, one more way in which Mongolian elections are women’s elections: women appear to be much more likely than men to vote. Since polling stations display the ration of female to male voters, my guess from the 16 polling stations that I visited on June 26 would be that the average ratio was close to 58:42. I hope that the GEC will release this ratio on a nationwide level after presidential voting concludes, but there is no reason I see that this observation is wildly off from national patterns.

So, put simply, women run Mongolian elections for predominantly women voters.

Female Candidates

But wait, something is not quite right here.

In the current presidential campaign, there is no female candidate. In 2013, health minister N Udval was the MPRP’s candidate, but she has been the only-ever female presidential candidate in democratic Mongolia.

And parliament? The 2016 brought a significant increase in the number of female MPs to 13 of the total 76 members, or 17%. Hm… That number was reached with a candidate quota of 20% women in place. It was also reached after four years of parliamentary sessions from 2012-2016 where a cross-party women’s caucus advanced some of the most important legislative agendas, like domestic violence laws, very effectively.

Coming Elections

Of course, politics is not the only area where women seem to be running much of the business, but continue to be excluded from leadership positions. Yet, women are also involved in selecting people to leadership positions, so I certainly hope that Mongolian parties will nominate more women for leadership positions in the future. There are many very capable women who are the backbone of Mongolian democracy in organizing elections. It is a shame that they do not play a more visible role in parliament and in government.

If the current presidential election has to start over because no candidate achieves 50% in the 2nd round, I personally hope that one of the three parties would turn to their leading women to nominate one of them.

Oh, and maybe consider thanking the women of your local election commission for all the hard and diligent work they contribute to the organizing of the election!

Posted in Elections, Gender, JD Democratization, Presidential 2017, Social Issues | Tagged | Leave a comment

I Don’t Understand the Calculations Behind Electoral Fraud

Posted on July 5, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

I was shocked during election observation on June 26, again, how much of a contrast there is between the diligence and care with which polling stations and voting procedures are run, and the public perception of the legitimacy of voting due to the perception of wide-spread vote buying. Put bluntly, there does not seem much opportunity for large-scale fraud in the polling stations, yet many Mongolians suspect that elections are marred by vote-buying.

Combatting Fraud in Polling Stations

Over the past several rounds of national elections, the General Election Commission has deployed more and more technology to make elections more transparent and tamper-proof. I described some of these measures in my recent post about election observation.

All that does not mean that there is no fraud that is going on in polling stations. But such fraud is inherently difficult due to the scale of personnel needed to carry it off.

This is something that I have not quite understood about allegations of electoral fraud in polling stations.

Let’s assume for a moment that I am a criminally-inclined local campaign manager in an Ulaanbaatar riding. There are a number of ways in which I could seek to influence votes, for example by offering to “assist” elderly voters and having them accompanied to the polling station. Let’s say that I am reasonably successful with some such strategies in winning some votes, perhaps even some that would have gone to another party otherwise.

This is a massively expensive way to cheat! It requires an active cheater per vote won (like someone accompanying an elderly voter) and that cheater is then “burned” for that polling stations as s/he would easily be recognized as offering assistance a second time by the very vigilant party observers. I cannot imagine that anyone would really pursue this as a rational strategy.

The same could be said for the mobile polling (to allow the infirm) to vote which is often mentioned as a possible opportunity for fraud, or even some of the fears around submitting a blank ballot which could then be re-introduced with a mark (though the voting machines would not allow for this as that ballot would already have been counted, so this would only influence a hand count).

So, unless a party has very credible information that the result is so close that even some few votes would sway the result in their direction, it seems to me that it makes no sense to pursue such labour-intensive strategies at election fraud, especially when there are activities connected with intensified campaigning that might actually sway voters to vote a certain way for free.

Evidence

In previous elections I have been quite frustrated by the oft-repeated allegations of electoral fraud that have never been backed up by real evidence.

Given how many videos of bribery have surfaced in this campaign – credible or not – and given the scale of personnel necessary to conduct electoral fraud of an extent that might actually sway the outcome, it seems odd to me that there is no more evidence of such fraud other than sporadic videos, etc. that we see.

On the other hand, I have become convinced that vote-buying is going on on some scale given how how often party observers talk about the vote-buying strategies of opposing parties in such detail as would only be known to someone who has likely thought about different vote-buying strategies themselves. Yes, not conclusive evidence at all, but I am more persuaded than I used to be that vote-buying and thus massive electoral fraud is happening.

This is especially frustrating to consider given the outcome of the 1st round of voting in the presidential election. As the MPP likely has much more significant resources (personnel and financing) to deploy than the MPRP, if any wide-spread vote-buying was happening, this likely “bought” the 2nd place finish for M Enkhbold over S Ganbaatar. I imagine that many Mongolian voters will see this similarly and will make their choice in the 2nd round with that consideration in mind.

Vote-Buying

Now, vote-buying. There seem to be so many different ways for how to pay voters in return for their vote. Obviously, this is an area where professionals keep devising ways on how to stay ahead of authorities on the one hand, but also of voters’ likely tendency to want to collect cash offered without actually having it determine their vote.

During this election, some of these schemes revolved around small loans at grocery stores, for example, where locals will surrender their national id card as collateral for small loans. Since the id card is necessary for voting, there are a number of possibilities that arise like paying off someone’s small loan just before the election which will enable them to vote and then expecting them to vote a certain way.

There has been a crack-down on attempts by voters to photograph their ballot before submitting it to offer proof that they’ve voted a certain way. In polling stations there are extensive signs now pointing out that cell phones cannot be brandished and in voting booths themselves there is a small basket provided where voters are meant to place their phone.

To the extent that rumours have specified prices, it seems that some votes were being bought for as little as ₮10,000 or just under €4. That seems like a very cheap price for a vote, but there are obviously many impoverished Mongolian voters for whom this might be a significant enough enticement to surrender their vote or to cast it for a candidate that they might have been leaning toward in any case.

Solutions

It seems to me that the attempts to secure voting in the polling stations have been just about maxed out. Overall trust in the election will not be instilled with further changes to the polling station layout, technology or other elements. Of course, that is not an argument against fine-tuning procedures further, but it means that some other approach is necessary.

Is It a Problem?

Some might argue, of course, that vote-buying does not really have an impact on the outcome of Mongolian elections as the two large parties are likely to engage in it in equal measure. I find that fairly plausible as there is no obvious reason to believe that one party is more inclined or more able to buy votes than the other party.

However, if vote-buying by the two large parties actually does more or less cancel out, it still prevents smaller parties/candidates from receiving the share of votes that Mongolians might actually like to give them. Ganbaatar in the 1st round might have been an example of this as I have discussed above.

Prosperity

There are examples of other democracies where vote-buying has more or less disappeared despite its early presence. For example, historically vote-buying seems to have been common in the U.S., but does not seem to play a significant role now, despite the many shortcomings of U.S. electoral laws and proceedings otherwise.

Part of the solution to vote-buying is wealth, of course. As incomes rise, the expected rise in “prices” for a vote will also rise, ultimately making it infeasible to purchase votes on any meaningful scale.

Voter Education

The General Election Commission should seek to increase penalties for offering to buy a vote. It should also begin to plan for the parliamentary election in 2020 to roll out some kind of campaign against vote-buying explaining to voters that selling their vote is essentially giving up the right to choose.

Office as an Earnings Opportunity

A broader effort to rid Mongolian politics of money would also be important, of course. First and foremost in such an effort has to be the perception that political office represents an earnings opportunity. As long as officials purchase their office with the expectation to financially recoup this “investment”, there will be a temptation to similarly invest in electoral outcomes.

If this perception of office as an earnings opportunity could be combatted (along with a more serious fight against corruption), some of the loose money in campaigns would also dry up.

Political Culture

In the long run, a change in Mongolia’s political culture toward more substantive debate would also counter-act vote-buying. Currently, voters are choosing to vote largely on the basis of their perception of political leaders and patronage. At that point, might as well sell your vote, as it is unclear to what extent that vote actually choses a particular course of action over another. But if it were clearer to voters what it means to vote for one party or one candidate or another to actually allow them to participate in decisions about future developments of the country, they might be more interested in casting their vote one way or another rather than simply selling it to the highest bidder.

 

Posted in Elections, JD Democratization, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Mechanics of a Blank Ballot

Posted on July 4, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

First, the presidential election campaign was sleepy. Then it turned sleezy. Now, things got exciting because some Mongolians seem to have found a strategy to fight back against two-party dominance and the “offer” of a choice of candidates that left many voters dissatisfied. That strategy revolves around the blank ballot, i.e. Цагаан Сонголт.

It seems that the blank ballot somehow snuck into the last revision of the election law to give citizens an option to vote “none of the above” on a ballot where they did not like the choices offered. I imagine that the original intention was simply to let voters express their support for democracy and the electoral process by showing up at a polling station, but then choosing not to elect any of the candidates.

While it is unclear to me whether this was an oversight or deliberate, this blank ballot option suddenly has taken on a lot of significance because the blank ballot is counted as a valid vote, so that it is counted when the result is examined as to whether any candidate received 50% of the votes.

This was confusing to me at first, as there are two minimum 50% requirements. [See also my earlier post on this prior to the 1st round of voting]

First, there needs to be a quorum of 50% in each polling station. If that is not reached, citizens who have not voted are given another chance to vote on the weekend following the initial vote. In the determination of this quorum, blank ballots are certainly counted. That is not the interesting question, however.

Secondly, a candidate needs to secure 50% of the valid votes to be elected, whether that is from among two or three choices.

Think about the July 7 second round:

The voting machines will tabulate four different piles of votes:

  1. Kh Battulga
  2. M Enkhbold
  3. blank
  4. invalid.

Now, in determining whether anyone has secured 50%, piles 1, 2, and 3 are thrown together to determine the total number of valid votes. Does the leader have at least 50% of this total? You see what is going on here: a blank ballot makes it that much harder to reach 50%. Assume 100 votes. A candidate would have to receive 51 votes to win. But if 10 votes are blank, the candidate needs 51/90 of the ballots that have made a choice, i.e. 57%.

Back to our current election. Battulga received 38% of the vote in the 1st round, Enkhbold 30%. If the share of blank ballot rises from 1.5% in the first round to even 4 or 5% it will make it that much harder for a candidate to win 50%.

And the revolutionary clincher is: If no candidate wins the second round, the giant reset button is pushed to force an entirely new election that excludes the possibility of re-nominating the candidates of the first election!

Discussions of the blank ballot have been percolating for the past week. First-round presidential candidate S Ganbaatar seems to have endorsed the blank ballot. Hashtags have proliferated:

On July 7, two numbers will be exciting to watch:

  1. Which candidate will receive the most votes?
  2. Will that candidate reach 50% or will the blank ballots prevent that?

 

Posted in Governance, JD Democratization, Presidential 2017, Social Movements | Tagged | 1 Comment

Ganbaatar Voters in 2nd Round

Posted on June 29, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

Ganbaatar received roughly 30% of the votes in the June 26 presidential election. One of the big questions about the July 7 2nd Round of voting is thus whom those Ganbaatar voters will support.

Enkhbayar Negotiations

To the extent that an official endorsement from the MPRP might be in play, that will most likely be determined by party chair Enkhbayar, not by Ganbaatar as the (former) candidate. [BUT SEE PS BELOW.]

If nothing else, frm president N Enkhbayar is a clever tactician, and seems to have become even more wily since being convicted for customs violations some years ago.

When there were no protests at all on the day after the election despite the sour taste that the trajectory of Ganbaatar’s initial lead over Enkhbold took Monday night, I suspected that various officials had prevailed on Enkhbayar to keep quiet, partly because of the lingering trauma from the July 1, 2008 riots and deaths. I also suspected that Enkhbayar would clearly look at this as an opportunity to negotiate, especially since the revisions to the criminal code that take effect July 1, seem to make him eligible for office again so that negotiations may be much more attractive to him than a lingering chance for a Ganbaatar presidency via protests might have been Tuesday morning.

And indeed, Mongolian media reported a lengthy meeting between Enhbayar and Enkhbold.

What might Enkhbayar be hoping for?

Should an endorsement by the MPRP put Enkhbold over the top, he’d have to resign from his parliamentary seat. That would be filled in a by-election that Enkhbayar could presumably run in. Obviously, there would be a DP and other party candidates, so the MPP would not be able to promise that seat, but it might be Enkhbayar’s best chance back into parliament.

More intriguing rumours suggest that Enkhbayar might be gunning for Prime Minister under a President Enkhbold. Now that would be a combination and a stunning comeback for the former president!

The third scenario is that if the blank ballot campaign succeeds at derailing the 2nd round of voting by holding both candidates to under 50% of the vote and causing a whole new election, Enkhbayar himself could presumably run for president in that election.

Electoral Calculations

But would Enkhbold (or Battulga) be well-advised to negotiate with Enkhbayar? The 30% of votes that Ganbaatar achieved are a tempting prize, of course. But it seems fairly doubtful that Enkhbayar would be able to “deliver” those votes to another candidate through an endorsement.

Recall that the level of party support for the MPRP seems to be somewhere around 7-8% judging by results in the 2013 and 2016 elections. So, more than two thirds of Ganbaatar’s 30% (or around 20% of the total vote) are swing or protest voters. Even if the loyal MPRP voters would follow Enhbayar’s endorsement, is there any likelihood that the remaining voters would?

If they are indeed protest voters, then they were protesting against DP-MPP dominance and are thus unlikely to support the DP or MPP candidate.

For those protest voters deciding to support either of the remaining candidates, it would be more likely to be Battulga to create a balance against MPP parliamentary dominance.

Or, such protest voters might choose to join the “white ballot” campaign to turn in blank ballots in the hopes of derailing the election with these candidates entirely. Or, they might simply stay home, depressing turnout which is still likely to be an advantage for Enkhbold, but an Enkhbayar endorsement or not probably has little to do with whether voters choose to participate or not.

It thus strikes me as pretty unlikely that large number of Ganbaatar voters would vote for Enkhbold calling the rationale behind negotiations with the MPP into question.

P.S.: Did Ganbaatar Just Endorse “None of the Above”?

In a press conference on June 30, Ganbaatar now seems to have resigned to his fate of (according to him) having been cheated out of the chance to compete in the second route voting. Instead, he seems to have endorsed the While Ballot (): “Саналын хуудсыг цагаан хэвээр нь уншуулахыг уриалж байна.”

If he continues to call for Mongolians to vote with a blank ballot, that is very likely to have a significant effect on the election as it will increase the number of blank ballots from 1.5% in the first round. Any increase in this number will make it more difficult for any candidate to receive 50% of valid votes.

Posted in Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Observations during Presidential Polling

Posted on June 28, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

From the perspective of a repeat election observer (this was my fifth national election for which I served as an international observer), the reporting about the election is always somewhat challenging.

On the one hand, I gain so many impressions from election observation that I am keen to share as regular readers of this blog would guess. On the other hand, I feel a real obligation not to draw any conclusions from my personal observations, as they are just that, one person’s observation.

The verdict that the press typically looks for is “free and open” or some variation thereof. In the Mongolian context, I am not sure that that stamp of approval is of any interest to individual voters or even to NGOs, but the international press certainly feeds this label straight into reporting as it provides a nice summary that does not require further fact-checking as a quasi-official statement.

I cannot make such a statement myself, particularly in an election where I was not part of a larger organized election observation mission like the OSCE’s. For the 2017 presidential election, please see the OSCE preliminary report for such a more systematic assessment.

But, I do have a perspective to offer beyond my observations on June 26, namely that this has been my fifth election that I have observed, so I have seen some patters and can compare this year’s election to previous iterations.

Impressions

For a series of photos from the 2017 presidential election, see the Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s Matthias Müller’s photos.

On the whole, I did not see any great differences between the 2013 presidential election and this year’s iteration. As has been noted by all election observation reports, I have always been impressed by a) the care that all the people involved in polling stations take, and b) the technology that is deployed in an effort at electoral transparency and security. Both of those factors were consistent across different polling stations this year as they have been in previous years.

Just for context I should note that for this election I travelled in a long circle from Ulaanbaatar to Zun Mod to Nalaikh and back to Ulaanbaatar. In all these locations, I visited a mix of neighbourhoods from very urban to very rural. In the past as well, I have been in Ulaanbaatar as well as in various aimags across the country, from polling stations that are a stone’s throw (well a powerful throw anyway) away from government house to a polling ger set up especially for an election to comply with the no travel beyond 70km required stipulation, in this case in rural Zavkhan where in the days before the voting machines, the hand-counted results had to be transmitted by riding onto a large hill that had cell phone reception to reach the aimag electoral commission in Uliastay.

This week, I visited 16 polling stations, staying for as long as 30min at some, but as little as 10min at others. Over the five years I would say that I’ve visited a total of 100 polling stations.

This week again, the polling stations operated very smoothly. When challenges arose (lines formed, we saw one malfunctioning voting machine) the electoral commission dealt with these challenges calmly, competently and effectively.

The Layout of Polling Stations

While the physical set-up varies across polling stations, they all diligently provide a private space for voters to fill out their ballot. Tables where voters will out the ballot are deliberately angled away from the view of election officials and observers. When there was no chair in the observers’ corner once and I stood, leaning against the wall, I was quickly asked to sit down on a shared chair, as my height might have allowed me to look onto the desks where voters were filling out their ballots.

At this election for the first time (note that I was in Ulaanbaatar last year for the parliamentary election campaign, but did not stay for election day and did not serve as an observer) I saw seating plans posted at the ballot stations as part of the extensive information about the voting process that is displayed at the stations. These small architectural drawings specify locations of the registration desk, the ballot dispersal station, the voting booths, the voting machines, and the drop-the-folder-and-get-ink-mark station. Actual physical layouts followed these plans very closely. I never saw a voter even glance at the information provided, but it is another piece of evidence of the care that is taken with planning and execution of the election

Another innovation this year were the arrows that pointed voters along the chain of stations as they progressed through the polling station. In most stations, voters are guided through the sequence in a clockwise direction, following general Mongolian practice around ovoos, etc. The arrows did not seem to be very effective as few voters noticed them.

Depending of the number of voters in a riding, there are one, two, or three machines to collect the ballots.

Technology

The technology that is deployed at polling stations continues to be impressive.

Filming inside of polling station for broadcast to outside

At all polling stations, there is a large TV placed outside of the actual voting place that shows a video image of the inside. Any interested voter individual could observe the entire proceedings all day long should they care to.

Voter demographics

As voters are checked in via their fingerprint, their photo appears on a large screen in the polling station, allowing observers (mostly party observers) to confirm their identity.

The same screen also offers tabulations of voting.

This includes the same of female/male voters, a breakdown of voters by age cohorts, a breakdown of votes recorded by those collect through mobile voting, those added to a local registration, and those voting as registered.

The turnout is also presented as a number as well as a bar graph.

Obviously, an empirical social scientist’s dream.

Given the data that is produced here for the information of local citizens, I completely agree with the preliminary report of the observation missions, that “transparency was somewhat limited by the GEC releasing only aggregated results”.

If citizens and perhaps especially the local citizens and party observers could access the polling-station-by-polling station information, they would be able to compare these to their own observations further increasing trust in the election procedures. Visiting social scientists would also be thrilled. For example, during my day of observation, I noticed that in virtually all polling stations female voters outnumbered male voters, generally in a ration of about 58:42. Was this a local/regional phenomenon? What does it mean?

Fingerprinting, Laptops, Machinery

There are usually at least four laptops around the polling stations. Two operated by election officials from the citizens’ registry (sorry, forget the exact name of the agency) that are connected to the fingerprint-reader.

We saw a few incidences of the fingerprint-reader having a hard time with someone’s fingerprint, perhaps because of wrinkles, very darkly tanned skin, or skin disease. In those cases, voters were allowed to vote by being entered by their national id number.

Challenges

I have seen some challenges in the voting process, a number of them recurring. I list these here not to criticize the procedures as they were not impacted severely by these challenges, but perhaps as suggestions.

Folder

The folder that voters use to carry the ballot to the voting machine does not work well. It is simple enough, i.e. an open folder of almost equal size to the ballot. It was folder over at the top to prevent voters from trying to feed the folder into the voting machine with the ballot. We actually observed this twice, i.e. voters trying to feed the folder into the voting machine, so the fold seems to fulfill an important role. Yet, the folder system is awkward.

Voting Machine

In its design, the slot where the ballot is fed in resembles a fax machine. Those readers of a younger generation are encouraged to search for “facsimile machine” online and I trust that some virtual museum will offer a display. The design is easy enough, i.e. a slot that the ballot is fed into, just like we used to feed sheets of paper into a fax machine. But the problems seems to be that the vast majority of voters have never used a fax machine. Perhaps this design could be improved upon.

Also (as always happened with fax machines, and still happens with copy machines) it is very unclear how to insert the ballot, upside down, right side up? It turns out that it does not matter, but voters do not realize that and election commission members are often asked to help. That seems to be a somewhat systemic weakness, though it also speaks to the humanity and pragmatism of the election commissions.

The greatest menace to the voting machine are toddlers and babies. Mongolia being a very child-friendly society in public, obviously sees many parents of young children brining their kids along to vote. Well, kids like to push buttons and pull on things. The voting machines do not always take well to these expressions of affection and some officials get quite nervous when children are circling the voting machine.

Conclusion

I have nothing to say about the election in general, having only seen a very specific subsection of polling stations. However, the election operated smoothly at these stations (as it had at the very many stations I have visited previously since 2008), and the operations inside the ballot station do not give rise to any suspicions of fraud at all. Instead, in technical terms, it seems to me that the enormous effort put unto planning and execution of the election pays of handsomely in terns of the organizational success that it represents.

Posted in Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Gobi Success for Ganbaatar

Posted on June 27, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

The electoral map from Monday’s results holds a number of surprises. One of the more puzzling ones is Ganbaatar’s strong results across the Gobi region.

Umnugovi

For example, in Umnugovi fully 43% of voters supported Ganbaatar on turnout that was in line with the national rate.

Recall that Umnugovi is Mongolia’s leading mining aimag with the large projects at Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi. But Ganbaatar’s record shows him at least skeptical about governance arrangements for these provinces. While there may be local concerns about the impact of mining, there are also numerous jobs in this region that depend on mining and since the pre-election nation-wide surveys suggested that employment was one of the concerns foremost on Mongolians’ minds, it seems surprising to see this high rate of support.

When we saw Ganbaatar campaign in Dalanzadgad, the event did not suggest a surge of support in the province only days before the election. While Ganbaatar turned his mining rhetoric down somewhat at the event, he still spoke about the questions he wants to raise about large mining projects.

Any visit to Dalanzadgad will also show a town that might not quite be a boomtown, but that is certainly bustling, with more active markets and more modern buildings and cars than one might expect in a relatively small aimag capital of a population of less than 20,000. Of course, the total population of Umnugovi is less than 70,000 and the aimag only contributed a total of 27,000 votes, so this is a bit of a Pyrrhic victory for Ganbaatar.

Across the Region

And it wasn’t just Umnugovi. In Dundgovi, Ganbaatar received over 46% of the vote! In Dorngovi the three candidates split the vote more or less evenly. In Govi-Altai, Ganbaatar was strong in second place behind Enkbold. It was only in Bayankhongor where Battulga seemingly atoned for his 2016 parliamentary defeat with a very strong showing (60%) that Ganbaatar failed to make any inroads (10.5%).

I have yet to come across an explanation of this strength across the southern region of Mongolia. Could it be related to the lower population density somehow? More reliance on media rather than word-of-mouth or discussions with neighbours?

Posted in Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | 4 Comments

Presidential Elections: 3 Things Happened

Posted on June 26, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

The results of the June 26 presidential election has come as a big surprise. I did not expect Battulga to win and certainly did not expect Enkhbold to struggle to finish 2nd.

Lots of questions to think about in coming days. But here is an attempt at a very first, overarching look at what has happened and how to understand it by describing the result around 3 themes:

  1. Battulga won
  2. Mongolians spoke their mind
  3. Campaigns matter

Note that these are almost purely domestic issues, foreign policy and even relations with neighbours did not play a big role in the outcome, I think, despite some of the patriotic symbolism.

Battulga Won

Some of the football podcasts I listen to start with “chronicler’s diary”, i.e. the basic facts of the previous match.

While the closeness in the number of votes between Enkhbold and Ganbaatar and how that has come about is a fascinating topic, the most fundamental result of the election is that Kh Battulga won this election. He did not win it outright, i.e. not with 50%+, but he received around 8% more of the votes than either Enkbold or Ganbaatar.

Battulga essentially won on the back of a sweep of the large (in population terms) Ulaanbaatar districts. He achieved his best result in the city in Bayangol district where he received 50.6% of votes. Enkhbold’s less-than-glorious history as Ulaanbaatar mayor particularly related to land privatizations probably played a role in this sweep of the city districts, though the city has traditionally been a DP stronghold.

Mongolians Speak their Mind

Like last year, Mongolians spoke their mind and gave nearly a third of their votes to a candidate that was deemed to have at best an outside chance, Ganbaatar. Since the “natural constituency” for the MPRP is only about 7 or 8%, more than 20% of voters were either convinced by Ganbaatar’s campaign (strikes me as unlikely, see my impressions) or cast their ballot in protest against dominance of politics by MAHAH.

They voted in numbers equal to the last presidential election and some of the drop from last year’s parliamentary election might be attributed to the stifling heat.

I think that democracy is alive and well.

Campaigns Matter

Even when many Mongolians seem to think that only money matters in elections, some of the result can probably be attributed to campaigning. Not the substance of the platforms (which I’ve written about), but the personal qualities of the candidates. Put simply, Battulga was a much better campaigner than many expected and Enkhbold possibly even worse than expected.

Battulga seemed at ease in large as well as small forums and gained momentum by more and more support from DP grandees over the course of the campaign. This was also visible in the TV debate between the candidates. Battulga seemed at ease and even somewhat charming.

Not Enkhbold. He almost never smiled during the campaign, does not connect with audiences (even partisan ones) and simply does not build enthusiasm for his candidacy. While some may argue that a portion of Mongolian voters appreciate the dour-apparatchik demeanour as a signal of seriousness, I think many do not.

Posted in JD Democratization, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | 5 Comments

Presidential Debate or FAQ?

Posted on June 24, 2017 by mendee

By Mendee

The presidential campaign closed with a two-hour debate on June 24.  Under the agreement between the DP, MPP, and MPRP for the debate, candidates were basically provided opportunities to express their views on frequently rumoured allegations during the presidential campaign.  Although the format (e.g., opening and closing, sequencing, timing, and grouping of questions) was great, it wasn’t a presidential debate, where voters could critically judge three candidates based on their values/principles, election platforms and/or policy options.

If three debates were held as had been hoped by organizers, things might have been different.  Candidates were skillful in engaging the blame-game techniques: Enkhbold on the DP government, Battulga on the MPP government, and Ganbaatar against the MANAN/ANMAN (a coalition government of the DP and MPP).

Responding to Allegations

The debate achieved at least two objectives.

First, we have seen three candidates on one screen and compared their public speaking skills.  Second, voters learned their personal views on numerous allegations: shady city land privatization deals and public post trading (known as the 60 million case) from Enkhbold; incomplete university, Feng Shui, and the “moonies” from Ganbaatar; non-transparent privatizations of state-owned enterprises, railroad deals, ties with Singaporean businessmen from Battulga.  Even though it was nice to hear their own views on these allegations, the final say rests with the judiciary and law enforcement agencies, esp., the anti-corruption authorities.

Policy Challenges

Candidates didn’t engage in real policy issues pertinent to the presidential institution. This causes some worries. First, (maybe) advisors, associates, and staffs of the presidential candidates have little knowledge about the institution.  Second, (maybe) the public or those who sent questions were most interested in street rumours. Third, our candidates are either little prepared or less enthusiastic about the post.  In the end, one of these candidates will assume the presidency, associates will work for the president, and voters need to judge them again after four years.  We could expect that less enthusiastic presidents will do nothing whereas too ambitious/less knowledgeables president will cause more challenges.  The former would just sit there as a symbolic figure with second-round hopes and the latter would upset the power dynamics.

Instead of wasting time over unproven allegations and incomplete investigations of their past wrongdoings, voters would love to see their wisdoms on the following issue.

For one, the most important constitutional mandate for the president is “the embodiment of the unity of Mongolian people (art. 30.1).  Voters all know that political and business elites, factions, and public are deeply divided based on our values, principles, interests, and social status.  There are hidden problems with Kazakh ethnic minority. Voters can come up with many explanations for why, but candidates could tell us how they approach – the issue of national unity.  Nowadays, a simple election, single Korean businessman, religious sect (Moonies) or sinophobic rumours could easily divide the homogenous society.

Secondly, the president, as a head of state, has greater authority and responsibilities in regards with foreign policy, which requires delicate, professional management.  Yes, Ganbaatar and Battulga expressed their views on lopsided relations with China vis-a-vis Russia.  Ganbaatar highlighted economic engagements.  However, all candidates need to express their views on how Mongolia could adapt in changing geopolitical and economic arrangements at the global and regional settings.  Would we expect changes or innovations in our current conduct of foreign policies?  What are their stances on the SCO, EEU, APEC and dealings with EU?  How about the tripartite summit with two neighbours?  How about third neighbours?  And, most importantly, what would candidates do to limit the politicization and partisan instrumentalization of the foreign service?

Thirdly, the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and shared responsibilities with the parliament and cabinet over all other uniformed services:  intelligence, police, border troops, emergency service and marshall.  Yes, at a moment, Mongolia is at peace, but there is a constitutional mandate for the president to initiate and oversee policies to maintain the “small, capable, professional” armed service. Voters clearly see the increasingly politicization of uniformed services and questionable conduct of professionalism in a number law enforcement agencies.  Military veterans, who were part of the Soviet-style, professional service, expressed their discontents for having a wresler – Defence Minister, an emergency serviceman – Deputy Minister, and a logistical officer as the Chief of the General Staff and for politicizing the most respected professional service – the military.  Candidates didn’t say a word in this regard.

Fourthly, the most discussed issue was the judiciary. All seemingly agreed the existence of the partial judiciary and politicized conducts of the law enforcement agencies.  Ganbaatar and Battulga presented themselves and their associates as victims of the nonpartial and politicized judiciary and law enforcement authorities.  Yes, there are facts and experience.  Seemingly, we all know about it and even both candidates as well as voters may be in agreement on why this is the case.  However, none of candidates tell us how they would fix this imminent, most dangerous policy problem.   Would they just simply continue the past practices?  What do they think of past judicial reforms?  How about new criminal code?  Or, the marshall service (tahar)?  How would they execute the power of pardoning (including foreigners)?  What would they do to increase trust in judiciary and law enforcement agencies?  Could they make them merit-based, independent, and professional?

Besides these key authorities, they, if willing, could exercise more authorities (checks and balances) in dealing with the parliament and cabinet.  Just to list a few:

  • How they would use the veto power and the authority to initiate laws and changes?  Would they pressure the parliament to implement the legislation on law-passing procedures?  Are there new legislative actions (bills, amendment) in their mind?
  • What would be their initial guidance to the Prime Minister under the Constitutional article 33.2? In what areas?  Are they in support or disagreement with policies and measures of the current cabinet (Prime Minister)?  Could we expect any changes?
  • How would candidates understand the power of the National Security Council (NSC)?  How would they use the power of the Chairmanship of the NSC and organizations under the NSC?  What would be the top 5 issues to be discussed at the first series of the NSC meetings?

Finally, two important issues were not fully discussed.  First, how would each candidate deal with their respective political party once he takes the oath of leaving partisan politics behind? Would he deal with all parties equally?  Would he believe in complete disconnection from his own party bureaucracy, especially the financing?  Second, what were their thoughts on the constitutional change?  Come on, this could have been the most crucial issue for the presidential institution because this second revision would re-shape the power arrangement of the domestic politics completely.  Whether he is in favour or against the change?  If so, what would be his role and stance in this process.  These two issues very critical for the new president.  Soon, he would be entering the lame duck period asking favour from his party leaders and factions to support him for the second round.  Or, he would fighting for the institutional survival in the constitutional revision process.

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Reflection on Campaign & Outlook [Video]

Posted on June 24, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

If you’re tired of all our blog post or of my convoluted prose, here’s a 2-minute wrap-up of the presidential campaign and a little bit of an outlook.

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More Feeling in DP Campaign

Posted on June 24, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

After earlier reports on Ganbaatar events and today’s impressions from a final Enkbold event, I just saw the Battulga rally on Sukhbaatar Square a little while ago.

A couple of days ago, I had written an article about the nationalism we observed in the campaign with Mendee J.

That was certainly confirmed by the DP event.

The Setting

Obviously, an event on Sukhbaatar Square right in front of government house is not only grant, but carries a lot of symbolism with it.

Add to that the DP decor with lots of blue, and the large banner above the stage and the whole event already begins to look very patriotic.

The introduction for the event was less rousing than the MPP’s with some drums, but pretty much launching right away into a series of speeches.

These speeches seemed to last for quite some time. Given the hot sun, I was certainly getting a bit anxious for the main event, i.e. the candidate’s appearance.

Costumes

Among the observations that drove Mendee and me to write about nationalism was the sudden appearance of deels everywhere. After there had only been a few at the MPP event, the DP stage was filled with deel-wearing DP grandees.

Not only were they striking in colour and complete with fedoras, but a number of the prominent individuals there I had never seen in a deel before.

On our left on this photo you can see frm Foreign Minister Lu Bold (wearing a sky-blue deel), for example, and next to him frm. Chairman of the UIX Z Enkhbold in a tan deel. I had never seen either of them in a deel at a public event before.

Endorsements

And while we’re looking at that photo, note that the people on stage suggest that the DP has rallied somewhat behind Battulga as a candidate. I hadn’t really expected to see people like frm Prime Minister Amarjargal or Bold or Enkhbold to appear here, but they did and they very much looked like they are supporting Battulga.

Here’s another example of such endorsement, in this case on Twitter by Z Enkhbold

The Main Event

Given the above discussion, I was surprised to see that Battulga was not wearing the very handsome black-with-silver dots deel that he had been appearing in for much of the campaign, but instead in a smart suit.

He was welcomed with a loud cheer that seemed much more enthusiastic and also less choreographed than anything I saw at other candidates’ events.

He spoke for about 15 minutes in his typical husky voice. As a speaker, he was quite effective in projecting a personality and a connection with his audience.

He was regularly interrupted by applause and cheers by a crowd that was varied in age, though the flag-bearing campaign workers were all young, most likely university students earning a bit of extra money.

After concluding his speech (again to great cheers), he shook the hand of everyone gathered on stage and listened to a number of additional speakers.

Overall, there was a very different energy at this event than at other events I had seen. I would guess that there were roughly 2,500 people at the event, despite the strong sun, and they seemed like they were supporting their candidate enthusiastically.

Kh Battulga making his way through crowd after campaign event.

 

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MPP Campaign Feeling – Or Not

Posted on June 23, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

Thanks to an invitation organized by some long-time friends, I was able to attend M Enkhbold’s speech to party faithful that seems to have been one of the last events of the campaign for the MPP.

Always very interesting to observe crowd reactions, especially when the content of the speeches has remained relatively the same over the campaign.

Assumptions

I attended this event expecting it to be a celebration of the party leadership, an enthusiastic send-off to tonight’s debate and a rousing speech to the party faithful to rally them to the final push in the campaign.

As such, I expected over-the-top applause, pomp-and-circumstance, etc.

That assumption would be confirmed by an after-the-event tweet from the MPP.

Introductions

The opening of the event conformed to my expectations entirely. A video showing the travels of the campaign through all 21 aimags was shown. It was served with somewhat military-style music and many images of enthusiastic crowds from different parts of the country. I thought it was notable that the crowds seemed to be dominated by older voters.

Not surprisingly, all of the MPP leadership was at the invitation-only event at the MPP headquarters.

The first speaker was PM J Erdenebat, then former President N Bagabandi, then G Undarmaa. All three surely meant to warm up and fire up the crowd, or so I assumed. However, it is hard to think of the Prime Minister or the former President getting any crowd particularly excited. They both read from their scripts and did not acknowledge the crowd even during the somewhat sparse applause.

Finally, M Enkbold himself rose to speak.

The applause was not exactly deafening.

He spoke for about 15min. He read his speech and when applause got a little bit more enthusiastic (in part spurred on by party staff circulating and encouraging the party faithful to wave flags, etc.), he seemed somewhat surprised. Until the very end when the whole stage was filled with grandees and supporters, he did not crack a smile.

He is a large man, but stands back from the podium in an awkward way.

At times the audience was not entirely sure whether applause was called for and the pauses in the speech did not necessarily offer clues as to the timing of applause.

He used the policy ger as a metaphor, but, for example, did not seem to mention mining once as a topic. He ended his speech with his campaign slogan.

Among the next speakers was Khurelsukh and in terms of the reception for his speech seemed to be by far the most popular. He received at least as much applause as Enkbold did. He leans on the lectern as he speaks, engages the audience, and even cracked a joke (I missed it, but he was the only speaker that elicited laughter).

He spoke about populism, rejecting it for Mongolia and mentioned Chinggis Khaan in the next sentence.

The impression of a “crown prince” was reinforced by the big smile that former PM Su Batbold offered during Khurelshukh’s speech.

After these speeches, there was a grand stage photo op, some cheering, but nothing along the lines of what I expected. The cheers subsided as the music ended and I stepped back from my aisle seat to give the older party activists in my row a chance to get closer to their leadership as they exited the hall.

In the end, it is very hard for me to tell whether I had simply expected more exuberance than is typical of these events, or whether this event was somewhat symptomatic of the MPP campaign in general, with somewhat limited enthusiasm for the candidate.

 

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MPRP Campaign not Feeling like a Protest Movement

Posted on June 23, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

Note: I wrote this post on June 21 and was in the countryside without WiFi. Since then, more “revelations” about the illegal donation Ganbaatar is alleged to have accepted, have come out. That information is not reflected in this post.

In the last days of the campaign, there are lots of whispers about the various poll results that the parties have, giving them hints about leaders in the race to become president. Those polls are not published (and would be illegal to publish under the election law) and they are never revealed after the election to show how they performed in predicting outcomes.

However, given the methodological challenge that all surveys in Mongolia face (few landlines, multiple cell phone lines, how to sample in countryside, lack of social statistics to be able to construct a valid sample, etc.), I doubt that these internal polls are of such a quality that they actually predict much, even though many if not most of the empirical Mongolian social scientists seem to be involved in polling of some kind during the election season.

Further confirmation that the polls might not be of great methodological soundness comes in the fact that I have now heard very confident 2nd-hand-reports from various directions that have any of the three candidates leading. “Oh, the MPP is panicking, Ganbaatar is in the lead.” “The DP is really revving up its campaign since Battulga has managed to grab the lead”, etc. I generally discount these whispers.

Of course, my impressionistic prediction is no better than a poll, but at least it is my own impressions that contribute to it.

Second MPRP Rally: Dalanzadgad

By pure travel accident, I saw Ganbaatar and a MPRP rally for the second time during this campaign while I have yet to see either of the other candidates live.

Ganbaatar appeared in the early evening of June 21 in Dalanzadgad, capital of Umnugovi. He spoke on a large square in front of the beautiful naadam stadium.

The crowd was even smaller than when I saw him speak in Tsetserleg earlier in the campaign, no more than a 1,000. As in the earlier event, the audience was dominated by older people and flag-waving and cheering party workers.

As is probably typical of most public rallies like this, local grandees and celebrities spoke before and after Ganbaatar’s speech. There were rows of flag-bearers arranged around the square and the stage was festooned with balloons. There was a large screen that played a loop of Ganbaatar campaign commercials. Somewhat funnily, there was a DP campaign ger right behind the screen so that the DP party flags were fairly visible from the main square.

Protest Movement

Ganbaatar was not a MPRP member before his nomination and was a member of parliament as an independent. He was anointed the MPRP candidate by N Enkhbayar the undisputed leader of the MPRP. The party’s calculus must have been that since their candidate would have an outside chance at best, might as well nominate a prominent candidate who would cement the party’s reputation as a guardian of the people’s uneasiness with MANAN (MPP-DP dominance).

But to have a shot at making it into a second round at least, Ganbaatar would have had to expand his appeal significantly beyond the MPRP’s which was well under 10%. The main opportunity was thus the personal appeal of the candidate and the building of momentum via a protest movement.

Ganbaatar’s Appeal

At the two public rallies I witnessed, I saw neither much personal appeal, nor evidence of an enthused protest movement.

Ganbaatar’s speeches were relatively short and he is not a powerful speaker. He was generally left standing by himself at the microphone and does not have gestures that liberate him from that slightly awkward set-up.

Supporters dutifully cheered (mostly on cue), but in Tsetserleg they were much more enthusiastic in cheering Enkhbayar and in Dalanzadgad much less enthusiastic in cheering Oyunbat, former MP from the aimag, and presumed local favourite to lead this rally. Looking at the crowd from the stage’s perspective, I did not see rapt or even particularly interested listening.

He did vary his speech, for example, toning down his stance on Oyu Tolgoi and other large mining projects (source of employment and wealth in Umnugovi, of course), by emphasizing that he was only asking questions about the contracts and agreements regarding these projects, not fundamentally questioning them.

Lack of Enthusiasm

Overall, the event was fairly lacklustre. It did not impress me as a nascent or blooming protest movement.

Of course, much of the campaign is playing out in the media, broadcast and social, so I would not suggest that we can draw conclusions on the basis of two rallies, but given the uphill battle that the Ganbaatar was facing, I did not come away from these events expecting to be surprised by results on June 26.

Posted in Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Presidential 2017 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Choosing Balance

Posted on June 22, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

At first glance (including my initial thoughts some weeks ago), it would seem that last year’s MPP triumph in the parliamentary election should make M Enkhbold, the MPP’s candidate, the clear favourite in this year’s presidential election.

He has been party chairman for some time, led the MPP into last year’s election, installed J Erdenebat as prime minister last summer and has served as UIX chairman since then. The sheer scale of the election victory last year should really speak to voters’ preference for Enkhbold’s leadership.

But Not So Fast…

  1. Did voters really elect the MPP last year? Many of them probably threw the DP out of office more than that they chose the MPP.
  2. M Enkhbold does not seem to be particularly popular. He is certainly not very charismatic, but many voters simply don’t seem to warm up to him very much. He seems fairly wooden and doesn’t display any obvious empathy with many voters. This lack of popularity is more important in the presidential contest than in the parliamentary election because this is a direct election of a single person. Even with the majoritarian voting system employed last year, voters were selecting MPs as part of a party and potential government. In the presidential election, they are directly electing a person as president, making personality and personal characteristics perhaps more important.
  3. In speaking to (a very much not random sample of) campaign activists and workers, the enthusiasm for his candidacy even in the MPP seems relatively low. It might also be the generally low-energy nature of the campaign so far (the fact that DP and MPRP activists are also not enthused about their candidates speaks to that), but that seems especially true of the MPP which should be self-confident and delighted in their current political dominance.
  4. There are few distinctions between the party platforms (scroll through https://mongoliafocus.com/category/politics/elections/presidential-2017/ to read summaries of the platforms and also some analyses), making personality even more important as a criterion.
  5. But, in addition, given their lack of any particular enthusiasm for the MPP last year, some voters may consider it important to balance the current political dominance of the MPP and a vote against Enkbold (Battulga, Ganbaatar or a blank/spoiled ballot) in the first and second rounds might be exactly that. So, perhaps voters will choose another candidate not as an endorsement of that person or their platform, but simply as not-MPP.

It is totally unclear to what numerical portion of the electorate some such reasoning might apply and what impact it will have on turnout or the result, but it is a logic that several Mongolians have articulated to me recently.

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The Diplomat Articles on Presidential Election

Posted on June 21, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes and Mendee

We’ve written two posts in The Diplomat that looked at different aspects of the presidential election:

  1. Julian Dierkes “The Race for Mongolia’s Presidency Begins“, June 6
  2. Julian Dierkes and Mendee J “Election 2017: Making Mongolia Great Again?“, June 20
Posted in Presidential 2017 | Tagged | 1 Comment

Allegations Against All Candidates

Posted on June 20, 2017 by JDierkes

By Julian Dierkes

One of the recurring challenges in trying to keep up with political developments in Mongolia is the extent to which these developments seem to be driven by rumours and accusations.

That is especially the case during an election.

What I continue to find very odd in this context is that allegations often do not seem to be examined as to their basic plausibility as they are repeated in the public.

In my remarks below, I do not claim that any of the allegations are unfounded or that individuals against whom they are levelled are innocent. I simply do not have the resources to really investigate any of these allegations and can only hope that Mongolian journalists and civil society will continue to intensify their activities in this regard.

In the past week, allegations against all three candidates have been made and have coloured the campaign. I look at these allegations to consider whether they appear to be plausible at all.

I ask these questions in good faith, not to bias any views about any of the presidential candidates, but as a comment on the campaign and the way it is unfolding. See also, my statement on my independence as an observer of developments in Mongolia.

Ganbaatar’s Moonies

A video is circulating that allegedly shows MPRP candidate S Ganbaatar receiving ₩50m (₮100m) from someone associated with the Korean Unification Church.

I do not have the technical resources to investigate the authenticity of the recording.

But I have to note that this is the third campaign in a row (if I recall correctly) that alleged funding from the Unification Church surfaces in Mongolia. The last two times these allegations involved Elbegdorj.

Some questions:

  • Did anyone ever follow up on these allegations after the campaign and find out whether there is concrete evidence?
  • What interest does the Unification Church have in Mongolian elections? Is there a plausible argument that would see them funding Ganbaatar’s campaign?

  • Given past allegations about Elbegdorj, would Ganbaatar not be especially careful in interactions with the Unification Church?
  • Would the amount alleged to have been exchanged be enough for Ganbaatar to consider compromising his reputation and integrity?

Battulag’s Offshore Account

DP candidate Kh Battulga’s reputation is perhaps even worse than that of most Mongolian politicians in terms of mixing personal profit with government business.

With the release of the Panama Papers last year and the appearance of a handful of Mongolian names in them, offshore accounts have increasingly been demonized even though it is unclear whether they are primarily suspected of serving as tax havens (not that plausible given Mongolia’s 10% flat tax until the IMF demanded a more progressive income tax), or as evidence for corruption. Anyone who is wealthy in Mongolia, of course, would be likely to hold a significant portion of their wealth in currencies other than the Tugrik given the Mongolian currency’s weakness over the past several years.

Battulga’s reputation and the discussion of offshore accounts makes it a plausible allegation that Battulga holds US$1.1b in offshore accounts.

But…

Wait a second. Mongolia’s GDP is somewhere around US$12b. Could Battulag’s wealth really amount to the equivalent of 1/10 of the country’s GDP? Given the rapid growth of Mongolian GDP over recent years, it’s not very plausible to think of the accumulation of such wealth from compounded financial income or investments of earlier gains. In his recent statement on earnings, Battulga only reported holdings in meat processing and tourism. Those businesses do not contribute 10% to Mongolia’s GDP and I do not see any particular reason that these would be sectors that are so overvalued or so massively profitable that they would produce massive wealth.

But the amount of wealth that is reported to be held by Mongolians is a question that would need further investigation as well. Is it in line with the relation between GDP and reported wealth in other countries, for example? If it is, then perhaps the US$1.1b figure would become more plausible.

Also, some of Mongolia’s other purported mega-wealthy (e.g. Odjargal of MCS) might have something to say about Battulga’s industrial enterprises claiming any significant fraction of GDP.

Of course, offshore holdings are not the same as a share of holdings of GDP, but the money would have to have come from somewhere.

So, if there is a $1.1b fortune out there, Battulga’s statement on his holdings and earnings can’t possibly be true.

But…

Where does this $1.1b figure come from in the first place. It appears to be reported on a website called wealthx.com for the year 2015.

Is this plausible? Here are some of the elements that make me wonder:

There are very few references to the wealthx reporting in the mainstream press and no references I could find at all in academic writing.

The website of wealthx is very sparse. It offers nearly no information about the company, other than that it is relatively clear that it is a consultancies that seems to sell “access” to überwealthy individuals.

Most worryingly to me as a social scientist, there is not even a hint of a discussion of methodology. There are some vague references to research, but what kind of research? Could it be that vein wannabe-billionaires self-report their fabulous net-worth here? Could Battuga’s industrial-sized vanity (yes, he did build a 40m-tall statue of Chinggis Khaan) have gotten the better of him and he reported his fortune as over $1b?

I have written to wealthx to try to learn more about their methodology but have yet to receive a response.

And what is even reported here? “Estimated net worth”. There is nothing about offshore accounts in that term. Yes, as I mentioned above, someone who did have significant amounts of cash in Mongolia would probably convert this to other currencies and likely hold this outside the country (and there’s nothing illegal or nefarious about that), but “offshore accounts” specifically as convoluted constructions of shell companies, etc. that are hidden on exotic islands to avoid taxes? Not mentioned here.

And, net worth does not mean cash, it means what his holdings are worth. Clearly, again, the holdings reported in his recent declarations are not worth $1b, they may not even be worth $10m.

Again, either his recent statements are wrong or this $1.1b figure is wrong.

None of this is conclusive in any way and others who have access to more detailed financial reporting in Mongolia and more resources to investigate may come to better conclusions, but for myself, I have to conclude that neither the US$1.1b offshore allegation is plausible, nor is Battulga’s income statement.

Enkhbold’s₮60b

Ah yes, the millions and billions are being tossed around fairly liberally.

The current allegation against MPP candidate M Enkhbold is actually an “old” one, in that it stems from a recording of an alleged conversation involving Enkhbold about party finances and how the sale of high offices in the MPP government could be used to gain funding (namely,₮60b). A small part of this recording was released during the parliamentary election last year. [Note, that I am not trying to provide a full account of this allegation here, but rather look at its basic plausibility.]

Most people find it quite plausible that offices are being sold, in fact most Mongolians I speak to about this, assume that this is going on, irrespective of party in power. That, of course, is outrageous and shocking in and of itself. But the allegation is plausible on the face of it.

At the same time, I would have to say that from my personal perspective if there actually is evidence of the involvement of a party leader in the sale of offices, that would certainly disqualify that person from any political leadership position in my eyes.

But…

The whole context of this allegation is complicated and casts doubt on its credibility that will have to be dispelled by further investigations, investigations that I, again, have no resources for.

The self-styled whistleblower, G Dorjzodov, has been doubted by some, though that happens to all whistleblowers, almost by definition, and does not by any stretch mean that he is not credible.

Why were these allegations not investigated further during the past year? [See paragraph on “media” below.] They were to some extent, but a court seems to have concluded that there was no definitive evidence that the voices on the recording are genuine.

Now, additional materials have been released, but those will also need verification.

With these allegations, I would thus conclude that they are at least basically plausible, but that they require much more serious investigation of the recording and of the parties involved.

Dirty Campaign

These allegations are partly just evidence for how dirty the current campaign is.

Any views on mild austerity imposed by the IMF? We don’t know, that is not being discussed.

How to achieve growth that is economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable? The parties are not going to tell Mongolians.

Does anyone have workable solutions to Ulaanbaatar’s winter-time air pollution catastrophe?

Instead much energy and resources is being spent on looking for dirt on the other candidates and amplifying any discoveries.

Impact

I have to wonder whether all these revelations have any impact on Mongolian voters. Are they not sick of endless revelations with ever-more outrageous amounts of money? When the allegations fly in all directions, does that not simply give credence to a view that sees Mongolian parties as  fundamentally corrupt?

Of course it is idle to speculate on this, since we will not know on what basis Mongolians will cast their ballot on June 26.

Media

The fact that allegations of this sort are so massively amplified does make me wonder about the role of the media. It seems like most media outlets content themselves with shouting about allegations rather than investigating them. Or, they are so shackled by the funds they receive from parties, companies and others to safeguard against negative reporting about these “donors”, that they will not investigate these allegations.

Obviously, there are some exceptions to this. I very much hope that a different kind of journalistic ethic continues to grow beyond few examples like MongolTV’s E Lkhagva and D Jargal “de Facto”, so that the public’s interest is served by investigating the wrong-doing of officials by providing credible and concrete evidence.

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